How do you sum up the culture of China, the world’s biggest country and its oldest continual civilization?
The simple answer: You don’t. But you can at least provide a sample of its art forms new and old, from contemporary pop-rock to folk music, dancing and opera.
“The show is named ‘Carnival China Style’ and that’s exactly what it is,” said Judy Jia, a board member on the Chinese American Association-Rocky Mountain Region, which helped bring the traveling show to Denver.
“It’s mainly designed for Americans to understand the variety of Chinese culture. Even myself, if I’m going back to China, I don’t have a chance to see all these different art forms at one time.”
The state-sponsored show, which kicks off a 10-date North American run at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House on Wednesday, will also visit cities such as Toronto, Chicago, Las Vegas, San Francisco and Seattle. Because of a last-minute problem with performance visas, it will be a nonprofit event — meaning you can donate at the door, but you don’t have to pay to get in.
The smorgasbord of entertainment, based on a Chinese traditional festival format, is vast: 70 performers will showcase a cross-section of China’s rich culture, including the professional acrobats and dancers familiar to many of us from the Beijing Olympics’ opening ceremonies and the first-ever American shows from popular Chinese pop-rock star Wang Feng.
Traditional arts from across the spectrum of the 1.3 billion-person country will be represented, including the Han, Uighur, Mongolian, Tibetan, Miao and Yi ethnic groups. Some of the artists performed for President Barack Obama during his November visit to the country.
“China has 56 minorities, 30 different provinces and I don’t know how many dialects and languages, not to mention hundreds of different musical instruments and different styles of operas and dance,” said Jia, who came to the U.S. from Beijing in 1992 and now runs Denver-based International Scanning Corp. “Several of the people coming in this show have been famous in China since before I left there.”
Highlights include:
• The dizzying displays of Jin Linlin, who appears in the Guinness World Records book for her unmatched abilities with the hula hoop.
• Rouzi Amuti’s songs, “Far, Far Away” and “Girls in Daban Town,” which deftly integrate modern musical styles with traditional Chinese rhythms and dance.
• “Modern Soft Virtuosity,” performed by acrobats Liu Jiayin and Bai Chunpu, who meld the essence of traditional Chinese acrobatics with eye-popping new techniques.
“I’ve been dancing Chinese folk dances for eight years, so I’m so excited they have a lot of first-class, professional folk dancers,” Jia said. “But I also love calli- graphy, and they’re actually going to have calligraphy on stage to show how to write Chinese poems.”
Unlike other touring Chinese cultural shows, such as “Chinese New Year Spectacular” (which takes political issue with China’s communist government), “Carnival China Style” is meant purely as entertainment — a cultural olive branch from a growing nation.
“People want to know this mysterious country, but it’s so far away,” Jia said. “China is such a hot place right now, and it’s started to open its heart to the outside world. This is a show that will help people get some knowledge of it.”
John Wenzel: 303-954-1642 or jwenzel@denverpost.com
Carnival China Style.
Cultural variety show. Ellie Caulkins Opera House, 15th and Curtis Streets. Wednesday. 7 p.m. Free (donations suggested; tickets at the door). 720-865-4220 or
